Chronos Paradox
by pathtales
Summary: When a strange girl appears inside an anomaly right outside of Starling City, it soon becomes clear she is from the future. How will her appearance change everything? set after Flash S1/Arrow S3
1. Chapter 1

Summery: When a strange girl appears inside an anomaly right outside of Starling City, it soon becomes clear she is from the future. How will her appearance change everything? set after Flash S1/Arrow S3

A/N: Barry still feels guilty about Firestorm but doesn't go off into complete solitude. Oliver and Felicity have been living their quiet lives and none of the events from Arrow S4 or Flash S2 have happened.

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"What do you see?" Cisco asked over the headset as Barry got to the blast site.

"Not much." He coughed, trying to see through the smoke. He tried not to think about how this was the place Ronnie and Martin had first separated.

"The energy signature came a few feet from where you are."

"I don't see any-" Barry cut off short as he nearly tripped over something. Or someone. "There's someone here."

He knelt down and quickly looked over the person. His eyes widen as he realized it was a woman, but she was dressed in an outfit very similar to Oliver's. He quickly picked her up and raced her back to the lab.

"She unconscious." He said, setting her on he table. His eyes didn't dare meet Caitlin's; they hadn't for a month now. "I'm going back to see if I can find anything else."

Racing back he quickly scanned the area while Cisco ran diagnostics.

"This energy signal is crazy." Cisco was amazed by the readings. "The only thing I've ever seen come close to it is Ray's suit and it's nothing like this."

"I'll pick up some dirt for analysis." Barry grabbed some and put in it an evidence bag. "How's the girl?"

"Stable." Caitlin replied. "But you are going to want to see this."

"On my way." He said. He was there in, well, a flash.

"Look at her gear." Caitlin said, showing him the bow and arrows she had had with her. They were like nothing he had seen before with Oliver. His eye caught the material and he felt the jacket she had been wearing.

"It's like the stuff Cisco has been trying to make." Barry observed.

"I just did her fingerprints and facial recognition so hopefully something will show up soon." Caitlin told him. "She's out cold but minimum bruising and burns."

"And she's engaged." Barry noticed her left hand. "Maybe we'll have some luck identifying her, we'll do a search for missing persons reports in the city."

"I'm going to take some blood work too, just in case." Caitlin said. "Who knows what that anomaly did to her."

"Do you have any ideas on what that was?" Barry went over the Cisco.

"Some, though none very likely." Cisco said. "This dirt is weird, I need run some tests on it."

"I'm going to give Diggle a call." Barry said. "Maybe Argus knows something."

"Good idea." Cisco nodded.

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"Hold on, hold up that necklace." Diggle was on a video chat with them and they were going through what they found on the still unconscious girl. The facial recognition and finger prints showed up nothing had showed up about her. They were running DNA now through the Argus data bank to see what popped up.

"This one?" Caitlin asked. She had taken off the necklace from the girl so that she could run vitals on her. She held it up to the camera. "You recognize it?"

It was a silver pendant that seemed to be made up of small arrowheads. Diggle had a very bad feeling about this.

"If I had a necklace that looked just like that, do you think you could run a match?" Diggle asked.

"And then we could find the supplier?" Cisco asked. "You think it's that rare or handcrafted?"

"I have a feeling." Diggle didn't want to say anything more just yet. "I'm going to head over to Central, I'll see you in a few hours."

"I could just pick you up." Barry offered.

"No thanks." Diggle shook his head. He still  
Was a little unsure of the super speed deal.

-:-:-:-:-:-:-

"This is so bizarre." Cisco looked at the two necklaces. "They're made from the exact same metal, and definitely hand crafted. The pendants aren't an exact match, but the arrow heads are so uniform it's scary. Yeah, made by the exact same person without a doubt."

"You know who made it, don't you?" Barry asked after Diggle was silent for a minute.

"The necklace I have was given to me by my daughter's god father as a gift for her once she's bigger." Diggle said. "He made it for her."

"Oliver?" Barry asked in surprise. "We should call him then."

"No." Diggle shook his head. "Only if we run out of other options."

"Yeah." Barry sighed. Oliver deserved his quiet life after everything he had been through.

"What if we just ask him about the necklace?" Cisco said. "Like, that's not too intrusive."

"I promised them no work calls." Barry shook his head.

"Guys." Caitlin rushed into the room. "Her DNA came up with nothing on the argus base, but the tests I ran did find something. She's five weeks pregnant."

"Ok, maybe we should call Oliver." Diggle said as they all looked at her.

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A/N: so what do you guys think? 


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: thanks for all the wonderful comments guys! I hope you guys will like where it's going!

Edit: apparently I uploaded this on AO3 and not here, sorry folks!

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"Hey Digg." Felicity smiled as she and Oliver opened the video chat.

"You're call from Star Labs." Oliver observed as Barry and Cisco waved at him.

"Yeah, we're really sorry Oliver, but we were hoping to ask you a few questions." Barry explained. "More of a consultation really."

"It's ok." Felicity spoke up, knowing exactly what Oliver was thinking. He had that adorably conflicted look that told her he wanted to help but also wanted to keep his promise to her about leaving the vigilante lifestyle. "I'm technically a consultant anyway. What do you need?"

"Are you sure?" Oliver asked her.

"Honestly I'm impressed it took them a month before needing our help." Felicity blurted out. "As long as you aren't running off in tight leather and a mask I'm good. Not that you didn't look good in the leather of course."

"What do you need?" Oliver asked Diggle, trying not to laugh or blush at Felicity's ramblings. He not-so-secretly loved it, but it would be better to let Diggle finish.

"The necklace you made Sara." Diggle suppressed his own chuckle. "The one with the arrow heads. Tell me more about it."

"Really? Jewelry?" Felicity had to keep from laughing at Oliver's bemused expression. "That's the favor you're cashing in?"

"Yes." Barry interrupted. "Diggle said you made it yourself from arrow heads you made yourself. Did you ever make another necklace like it?"

"No, it was my first time making any jewelry and the only thing I've made since is Felicity's bracelet." Oliver told them, Felicity holding up her wrist and jingling it.

"The arrow heads." Cisco interrupted. "How about those. What is the probability someone else could make those."

"Pretty low." Oliver narrowed his eyes. "I used silver from some old jewelry I never wear and the shape is my own designed, modified from the different styles I've learned."

"So would you say this is your necklace and no one else could have made it?" Barry held it up.

"Yeah." Oliver nodded. "Why?"

"Because that's not Sara's necklace." Diggle took it out from his pocket. "This is."

"So someone is making copies of Oliver's necklace?" Felicity asked completely perplexed.

"Possibly." Diggle said. "The reason we ask is a woman showed up in an anomaly outside Central City. She's completely unconscious and nothing is coming back on her. We ran DNA, facial recognition, and fingerprints. The only thing we can identify is the necklace."

"Another anomaly?" Oliver asked, looking at Barry. "You ok?"

"Fine." Barry nodded. "I wasn't in this one. The energy signals aren't matching the last one either."

"If anything they are closest to the energy signatures from the explosion in Ray's office." Cisco added.

"I'm going to bring the tablet to her and the gear she had. We're having no luck with any of it." Diggle said. He brought the tablet around and showed them her face.

"I have no idea who that is." Oliver frowned after a moment. "I'm good at faces and I know I've never seen her before."

"This is the bow she had with her, but no arrows." Cisco held it up. "I haven't been able to figure out the design or anything. Obviously modified but none of the parts have shown up in any data base."

They were interrupted when Caitlin walked in with her clip board.

"Well the fetus seems fine but she's not on any prenatals so I'm going to guess she doesn't even know she's pregnant." She announced, not looking up. "Besides her bruises which suggests she was in a fight right before she showed up, she's in perfect health."

"She's pregnant?!" Felicity exclaimed. Caitlin finally looked up and paled.

"Oh, you did call them." She tried to brush it off. "Any luck with the ID?"

"No." Barry said, looking away from her.

"Ok, we're heading over to you." Felicity said. "Don't give me that look Oliver, I'm not letting you sit this out. I'm curious myself about what's happening."

"Looks like we're coming to you." Oliver said before ending the video call.

"Are you sure?" He turned to her.

"Yes." Felicity kissed him quickly. "Let's solve a mystery."


	3. Chapter 3

Chronos Paradox Ch. 3

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A/N: I don't have a good excuse for why this took so long except you know, college, so here you go! My roommate is on my ass to write more often so future chapters should be fast I promise.

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"Alternate Universe." Cisco said after a very long and awkward pause.

"What?" Diggle asked, knowing he would probably regret it.

"I'm betting she's from an alternate universe." Cisco said. "We already had time travel and this doesn't feel the same. It could be like the ekpyrotic theory and she could be from a reality where all the genders are swapped. I'd say she's the female version of Oliver."

"Cisco you literally just described a 'genderbent fanfiction.'" Barry said while Caitlyn and Diggle simply stared. Barry suddenly blushed; that wasn't something he wanted his friend's to know he knew.

"You know what, I'll take that bet." Caitlyn said suddenly. "$50 it's time travel again. This is probably Oliver's crazy ass vigilante daughter or something. Oh, another $50 on that!"

"Really?" Barry asked weakly. A small part of him wanted to savoir this moment of normalcy between the trio that they hadn't had in, well, a very long time.

"Can't it just be some total coincidence that this stranger shows up with no connection or crazy super power or time travel or universe shit?" Diggle blurted out. "Can't we have something semi-normal happen for once."

"Probably not." Barry replied, the sides of his lips almost twisting into a rare smile. He hadn't done that in about a month. Suddenly his work phone went off and saw Joe was calling. "Great, I have to get to the station. Give me a ring when Oliver and Felicity get here." And with that he raced off.

"Allen!" The captain called over the minute he walked in. "Get in here!"

Barry walked over to the meeting room where everyone was gathered. Something major had happened and Barry was instantly in CSI mode.

"Alright, so at exactly 0800 hours this morning the top three banks in Central City were robbed by a single gunman each." The captain shouted so everyone could here. "Each robber avoided security, cameras, and got in and out under the police response time. No finger prints, no good clear image, and over a million dollars stolen in total. Eye witnesses all reported each robber to be a short, lanky man dressed in all green and seemingly disappeared after they ran into a back alley by each bank. I want to know who these jokers are, where they are, and get this money back."

Barry did not have time for this. He already had a strange girl that appeared out of nowhere and now these mysterious robbers? A small part of him really wanted to hope this was a coincidence but the logical part of his brain screamed at him that even hoping so was stupid.

"I know that face." Joe whispered to him. "What you got?"

He quickly filled Joe in on what happened at the lab as they went back up to his office to analyze the security footage further.

"You think that girl and these guys are related?" Joe asked.

"It would seem like it, but who knows." Barry sighed. "That seems almost easy." He trailed off at the last word however and stares at the video. He pulled up multiple camera shots analyzing it. There was something so familiar about the three men. It was extremely practiced the way they avoided the cameras and they were nearly identical. Barry pulled up a similar angle of the three robberies to try to spot anything that can help when the captain called to tell him they were ready for him at the first bank for more CSI analysis. The other CSI agents were spread thin enough as it is so he quickly, or at least regular non-meta human-ish quickly, got to the scene.

"Well Allen tell me what you got." Captain Singh said as he walked up to him.

"This is the cleanest hit I've ever seen." Barry murmured almost to himself. "There really is no evidence left. I want to examine the back alley where the guy supposedly disappeared."

"Get me something Allen." The captain said as he walked away. Barry went out to the alley and saw that it was indeed a dead end. He went to the corner he knew was just out of the view of the cameras that he had been watching all morning and looked around. He noticed some slight scorch marks in a pattern that seemed familiar. Looking around to see if anyone else was here, he sped to the other two alley ways and saw the same patterns. Returning to the bank he was supposed to be working at in just a few seconds.

"Hey Joe," Barry walked up to him. "I think you were right to ask if this is related to the incident last night. I'm going to give Cisco a call to analyze the area."

"Let me know what you find." Joe sighed as he walked away.

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"It's the same energy signature all right." Cisco said as he looked at the results.

"That's what I was afraid of." Barry sighed and turned to face the unconscious girl. This was getting more complicated by the hour and Barry was glad Oliver and Felicity were on their way for backup.

Suddenly the machine the girl was attached to began beeping more rapidly. Caitlyn ran over, Barry coming up to help, and began assessing.

"Her heart rate is increasing." Caitlyn said.

"Is that good or bad?" Cisco asked.

"I don't know just …" She gasped. Barry and Cisco looked where she was and saw her index finger moving slightly.

"Is she waking up?" Barry breathed.

"Possibly, but I'm too nervous to give her something because of the pregnancy." Caitlyn explained.

Just as suddenly as it started it stopped. Her heartrate slowed and her finger stopped moving.

"What just happened?" Cisco asked.

"She's trying to wake up on her own." Caitlyn replied. "It's similar to Barry; she needs time to heal from whatever happened."

"Oliver and Felicity are just getting into town." Diggle said walking in. "They'll be here in about ten minutes."

"Perfect." Barry said and started to fill Diggle in on the robbery when the machine started beeping again.

"…aaaa…" the girl mumbled very lowly. "…aaaawn…"

"She's trying to say something." Diggle stated the obvious as Caitlyn checked her vitals. "On? Something on?"

"…dawn…" the girl moaned.

"Dawn." Barry frowned. "What about the dawn?"

But it was too late; her heart rate decreased again and she was still.

"Hey guys, traffic wasn't too bad!" Felicity's voice suddenly came from the doorway and they all jumped to see her and Oliver. "What did we miss?"


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I had surgery and it's been a long recovery. Forgive me?

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"Dawn?" Oliver asked after the team caught them all up. "Didn't she show up early in the morning?"

"Yeah, it was pretty early." Barry nodded. "Maybe. But honestly it could be anything, she might have been trying to say something else."

"I think we shouldn't worry about the dawn part." Felicity said, her surface already synced up with Cisco's lab equipment. "Barry's right, it really isn't that much use to us right now. Though can I also go in on this bet? I like Cisco's idea of an alternative dimension."

Oliver and Barry shared a look but neither commented.

"What about the time travel thing?" Caitlyn protested.

"The time travel thing has been done though, it wouldn't be that again." Felicity pointed out.

"Fine, I hope you can put your money where your mouth is." Caitlyn murmured as she went back to re-checking the girl's vital signs again.

"Let's focus on something that we can analyze." Felicity tried to redirect the conversation again. "Cisco, how is the analysis going on the energy signal from the alleyways that Barry collected from the robberies?"

"The first two were identical, but the last one was slightly different." Cisco said. "And a few other similar but smaller signatures across the city."

"Let me take a look!" Felicity rushed over to his desk. "Is there any way to get a time stamps on these? Maybe we can track him."

"I'm way ahead of you and I thought of that but it doesn't seem to be working." Cisco frowned. "There are a few other algorithms I want to try though."

"Guys, I have some news from Lyla." Diggle walked back into the room after taking the call from his wife. "She and Thea had an encounter with a guy in a green suit who broke into Star Labs. Only one man, but he seemed to have been expecting Thea and was able to navigate out easily and disappeared."

"How much do you bet that's our guy?" Barry asked sarcastically, only to see Oliver give him a pained looked. "Or no more bets."

Diggle's phone rang again as did Felicity's. They both answered and Felicity shot out of her chair.

"No, I am not selling." Felicity shouted. "I don't care how much money this guy is offering."

"Yeah, she's getting the news now I think." Diggle mumbled, looking at the outraged Felicity.

"Ray's only been … gone for a little over a month." Felicity's voice faltered slightly. "I still haven't finished going through all the legal documents yet, it can't even be legal for someone to buy out Star Labs just yet."

"Buy out Star Labs?" Oliver asked Diggle in shock.

"Some anonymous group filed to buy Star Labs and all patents it holds." Diggle related what Thea was quickly telling him on the phone as he hung up.

"Ok, everyone just stop." Barry said, frowning deeply. "This is starting to get weird even for us. All of this happening is connected, it's too crazy not to."

"Barry's right." Caitlyn sat down and shook her head at this entire situation. "I'm just waiting for a guy in a cape or something to just start flying around the sky in their pajamas or shape shifting aliens from mars to come start trying to learn human ways."

"At least we don't have to worry about any more billionaires with parent issues." Felicity ventured a joke but saw Oliver glaring at her from her peripheral.

"The statistical probability of any of that happening is so small I don't think we need to worry." Barry tried to defuse the tension. "What we need to do now is figure out what we can do. Felicity, Caitlyn, and Cisco can keep trying to figure out what all these energy signals mean as well as hopefully seeing if this girl wakes up. Diggle and I can go to Starling City to help Thea and Lyla stop the green guys who I bet anything are behind the sudden buy out of Star Labs."

"Wait a second." Felicity rushed back to her computer. "Cisco, didn't you say the closest energy signal was from Ray's suit?"

"Yeah…" Cisco pulled up his own files.

"Wait, so you think this all goes back to Ray?" Diggle asked.

"That's what it's looking like." Oliver leaned over Felicity and tried to understand her screen.

"So apparently there is a club of people who have a thing for Ray and/or his research who share a love of the color green?" Caitlyn summarized.

"I don't think it's that simple." Diggle hesitated when no one else spoke up.

"Let's just go with what Barry suggested." Oliver voiced calmly. "Felicity, Caitlyn, and Cisco are obviously making progress here so Diggle, Barry and I should go be back up in Starling and try and stop these guys there."

"Wait, you want to go with them?" Felicity jumped in her chair and nearly hit Oliver in the face. "Are you sure."

"Yeah, Oliver are sure?" Diggle asked.

"Yes." Oliver squared his jaw. "This is big. When things get big we are each other's backups. Until aliens start flying around with capes that is." He added with a small smile.

"Wow, civilian life has loosened you up." Caitlyn commented, slightly frightened at seeing Oliver joke for the first time.

"I'm so proud of him." Felicity gave him a quick kiss and dropped her voice low so it was just the two of them having a conversation. "You are sure, right? You feel up to all this?"

"Yeah." Oliver whispered back as he pressed his forehead to hers. "Are you ok with me going?"

"As long as you don't do any of that sacrificing yourself for others thing." Felicity chuckled, though it wasn't really a joke. "Stay safe and get your cute butt home safe."

"Promise." Oliver kissed her again. "Love you."

"I know." Felicity smirked and turned back to the others. "All right, let's get back to work. I think Barry should literally run ahead with the scanner and see if he can pick up any more energy signals that come close to ours in Starling City, especially by Star Labs."

"Great thinking." Barry said. "Except I'm technically on a case for the precinct so let me go let Joe know that I'll be 'working in my office' on this one."

"Alright team, let's go then." Diggle said as they all went back to work. He took one final glance at the girl laying on the table as he and Oliver walked out and hoped all these puzzle pieces would start fitting together soon.


End file.
